Moral Sense [Paperback]

James Q. Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

Are human beings naturally endowed with a conscience? Or is morality artificilly acquired through social pressure and instruction? Most people assume that modern science proves the latter. Further, most of our current social policies are vbased upon this "scientific" view of the sources of morality. Here, however, the author seeks to reconcile traditional ideas with a range of important empiracl research into the sources of human behaviour over the last 50 years. James Wilson shows that the facts about the origin and development of moral reasoning are not at odds with traditional view predating Freud, Darwin and Marx. Our basic sense of right and wrong actually does have a biological and behavioural origin. This "moral sense" arises from the infant's innate sociability, though it must also be nurtured by parental influence. Thius, this book revives viable ancient traditions of moral and ethicla argument that go back to Aristotle, and reunifies the seperate streams of philosophical and scientific knowledge that for so long were regarded as unbridgable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this age of self-gratification and widespread lawlessness, Wilson ( Thinking About Crime ) takes the unfashionable view that a moral sense is part of our basic nature, albeit one that competes with our narrowly defined self-interest. In this lucid, elegant, magisterial and controversial essay, the eminent social scientist, a public policy professor at UCLA, punctures the tenets of neo-Darwinian biologists, cultural relativists, Freudians, behaviorists and anthropologists. Social bonds, he argues, are not entirely a matter of convention or a tool to ensure perpetuation of the species. Instead, our moral faculties--sympathy, fairness, self-control, etc.--grow directly out of our mutual interdependence as social animals. Wilson believes that the moral sense is formed as the child's innate disposition interacts with earliest familial experiences. Self-restraints on appetites are built into the "primitive" limbic brain, he stresses. Perhaps his most controversial thesis is that men and women differ in their moral orientation, with men more inclined to emphasize justice and emotional control, while women stress sympathy, caring and cooperation. First serial to Commentary, Crisis, and Public Interest.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The author, a political scientist, argues that human beings all share a "moral sense" rooted in human biology and evolution. Using data from anthropology, sociology, biology, and psychology, he argues that this "sense" does not consist of universal rules of conduct but rather of shared tendencies toward sympathy, fairness, self-control, and duty. While Wilson shows that these tendencies can be shaped--or distorted--by cultural forces, they are strong enough to counter the postmodern tendency toward complete cultural relativism. The masterful synthesis of data from many disciplines (plus the fact that excerpts from this title are serialized in several leading current affairs journals like Commentary , Public Interest , and American Enterprise ) make this an essential title for any academic or public library serving an intellectural clientele.
- Mary Ann Hughes, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029354064
• ISBN-13: 978-0029354063
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,373,160 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rarity: a book on morality worth reading, June 5, 2001

By 

Greg Nyquist (Eureka, California USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The MORAL SENSE (Paperback)

Generally speaking, I have little use for books on morality. Anyone who needs to be given reasons in a book not to rape, rob or steal is someone not to be trusted. Books on morality, at best, are merely rationalizations of what all decent people believe anyway, and I fail to understand what is the point of that. But James Q. Wilson's "The Moral Sense" is a different kind of book on morality. Instead of trying to prove that murder is wrong or genocide evil, Wilson attempts to explain the origin of widespread beliefs concerning moral issues. His thesis is quite simple: morality, he argues, is based on human nature. In pursuing this goal, he makes no effort to state or justify moral rules, but seeks only to clarify what ordinary people mean when they speak about moral feelings and to explain the source of those feelings. Wilson regards this book as a continuation of the work begun by 18th century British philosophers, most notably David Hume and Adam Smith. He adds to this tradition a wealth of evidence from the biological and social sciences. The empirical examples Wilson has collected to illustrate his arguments are fascinating. "The Moral Sense" is not only the best book on morality written in the last fifty years, it also one of the best primers on the latest scientific evidence relating to human nature. For this alone, the book deserves high marks. It refutes the widely held notion that human nature is culturally malleable and that, with the right education and upbringing, the nature of man can be radically changed. Anyone who aspires to be educated and to understand what science has discovered about human beings needs to read this book. They will learn more about man and society from this book then all the text books they ever read in university courses in the social sciences.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Moral Theory and Application, August 12, 2005

By 

D. S. Heersink "D. Stephen Heersink" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The MORAL SENSE (Paperback)

This is an important book. If one has only one book to read on morality and ethics, I cannot recommend a better book than Wilson's "The Moral Sense." It's the first and, to my knowledge, the only, book that is a thoroughly modern, naturalistic, and intuitionist theory of ethics to date. The book begins with the challenge facing modern readers: Do we accept the total relativism of Rorty and other pragmatic academics who argue there is no moral sense whatsoever, or do we accept the polar opposite that only revealed religion or Kant's and Benthan's absolutist maxims give us a moral sense?

According to Wilson, both extremes are to be avoided by conciliating the theory of moral sentiments advanced by David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and especially Adam Smith in the 18th century with the theory of evolution advanced by Charles Darwin a century later. Wilson arrives at a thoroughly modern conception of human nature and what it means to have a natural moral sense without prescriptive religion or deontological maxims to guide us. It is a wonderfully entertaining and highly thought provoking book to read on what can sometimes be a dull subject.

Obviously, modern moral developments have not all been positive. As Wilson observes, we've come to our senses about equality, fairness, and empathy towards others, but we may have left behind self-control and duty to others. I think he's absolutely on target. Unless and until we recognize that morality is not divinely-instituted, but rather empirically established by who we are by nature, and yes a Darwinian nature, then our moral sense will be always miss its target. All four: (1) Fairness, (2) empathy, (3) self-control, and (4) duty must operate concurrently for our morality to be balanced. Wilson's diagnosis of modernity is that they are imbalanced: We've largely omitted self-control and duty from our moral sense and become a tad bit self-absorbed (although recent developments may suggest otherwise).

The first-third of the book rehearses the theory of moral sentiments and the applicable theory from evolution to establish the four "impulses" or "intuitions" of morality: Fairness, empathy, self-control, and duty. Notice these are universal, naturally-endowed impulses, not religious or philosophical maxims or prescriptions. We "intuit" these concepts, and from their application with our experience of family, friends, and society, we develop character. This interaction thusly develops a "conscience" to guide us. This is the substance of the second-third of the book. The last-third of the book explains how conscience (i.e., habituated character) forms affiliations, rights, and responsibilities. Here the author's adds his insights and applies them to a few case examples.

The book is not flawless, but it is the most comprehensive, modern, and naturalistic book on ethics to appear in a single volume. That's a mighty claim, but I think it holds despite my criticism. I have two: (a) Wilson tends to be disorganized to the point of distraction; key concepts almost become ancillary. It's a problem of organization that could have been avoided by a matter of style. (b) The second criticism is a kind of sloppiness occurs in the final section: Besides trying to "humanize" his theory excessively, many of his personal reflections are too time-bound to be perennially relevant. These flaws would not be so egregious if the third section kept to a simple summary of key concepts; but instead of a simple summary Wilson addles between a summary and ruminations. Because the third section is perhaps the most expansive, these criticisms are all the more glaring.

For these reasons, I think the reader would be well-served to precede this book with Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue," even though they cover some of the same territory. Ridley is a much more disciplined and focused author, whereas Wilson has a more expansive and developed sense of a intuitionist morality. If one can't read both - and if the reader is careful to focus on the key concepts rather than the supporting evidence and ancillary reflections - then this book is the one to get. Extreme relativism and extreme religiosity are no longer necessarily appropriate for an intuitional moral disposition. Moral balance, based on the four intuitions, are sufficient and necessary for a virtuous life.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you think, March 8, 2002

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Ms Diva "cycworker" (Nanaimo, B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The MORAL SENSE (Paperback)

I normally wouldn't give a book that is this slow such a high rating. Some of the chapters are longer than they need to be. Despite that, Wilson's argument is so interesting that it is worth struggling through some rather difficult writing to try to understand it.

Wilson is making a very conservative argument that argues that everyone is born with an innate moral sense, but that the family is key to socializing children to express that basic human nature. He uses extensive reference materials to back up his argument. In the end, I wasn't convinced that his thesis was correct, but he made me consider possibilities and arguments that I had not contemplated in the past. Some of his arguments about women were clearly sexist, and he didn't back it up in a way that made it seem like anything more than anti-feminist rhetoric. Overall, however, some of what he said did make sense. The book made me think, which a decent philosophical essay ought to do.

If you are willing to read a book you might not agree with, and you are interested in philosophy/morality, this book is worth the effort.